A new survey of Tory party members suggests they already have buyer’s remorse from last year’s leadership contest as they turn on Kemi Badenoch.
The opinion survey of party members, conducted by the Conservative Home website, sees Tory activists rank the party’s frontbench in order of preference.
Since the last so-called league table, Ms Badenoch has plummeted 19 points to just 13.3% approval among party members.
This comes on top of her fall of 40 points in the previous survey.
She is now only the 14th most popular member of her own shadow cabinet, a long way away from her previous popularity when she frequently came top of the rankings while in Rishi Sunak’s Cabinet.
Robert Jenrick is now the most popular member of the shadow cabinet (Image: Parliament Live)
In a stark reversal of fortunes, Robert Jenrick is now the most popular member of the shadow cabinet, on 57.4%.
Coming so soon after Ms Badenoch beat Mr Jenrick in last year’s leadership contest, it suggests party members may already be thinking they picked the wrong candidate.
Shadow Chancellor Mel Stride comes in second, on 46.7 points, after a strong performance taking on Rachel Reeves’ disastrous economic record.
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp comes in third, just behind Mr Stride on 45.1.
Meanwhile Shadow Foreign Secretary Priti Patel is in stone dead last, on -10.2, after sparking a huge row when defending the Tories’ record on immigration in government.
Priti Patel is the least popular member of the shadow cabinet (Image: Getty)
Conservative Home warns: “We can only expect the leadership’s low-profile, slowly-but-surely strategy – which already cracked with last week’s immigration announcement – to crumble further.”
“Even if the membership continues to narrowly favour it, Badenoch and her team need to change the narrative before her first impression as leader locks in.
“But it also highlights why the two-year wait on major announcements, and perhaps to an extent her entire leadership pitch, were unrealistic.
“Politics abhors a vacuum, and between Reform UK and a vast Labour back bench there is more than enough political drama to keep the media entertained without the Conservatives getting even a mention.”
The latest set of polls mostly put the Tories in third place, behind both Labour and Reform.
